Three or four days ago the Sun will have thrown a lot of this stuff out in an event called a coronal mass ejection, and they would have been travelling towards the Earth since. It all depends how active the Sun has been.

Speaking about the Northern Lights appearing as far south as Gloucestershire, he added: "It is just good luck. The last time I have seen it this spectacular was probably 20 years ago."

The Slooh Space Camera aired live footage of the Northern Lights from Alaska, a site that where the Aurora Borealis can be seen traditionally.

"While there is never a guarantee of the northern lights on any given night, our team will be positioned under the statistically clearest skies, during the dark of the moon, at a time in the present solar cycle – solar max – when auroras occur on 75% of all nights," Slooh astronomer Bob Berman, told space.com

"Then we plan to splice multiple images together to show the phenomenon's motion over a two-hour time period and capture the majesty of experiencing this incredible event."